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Mali Morris RA

Mali Morris RA

Mali Morris was born in North Wales and studied Fine Art at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, BA (1963-68) and the University of Reading, MFA (1968–1970).

Her concentrated compositions engage the viewer in the contemplation of pure abstraction, in which colour relationships structure a luminosity that emanates, creating complex layers of space. They explore the language of painting, and its ever-changing expressive possibilities.

Her first major exhibitions were at the Serpentine Summer Show 3, London, 1977 and the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, 1979. Since then she has held over 30 solo shows worldwide, and has been included in numerous group shows, at the Barbican, Hayward Gallery, Serpentine Gallery, Whitechapel Gallery, Walker Art Gallery Liverpool, Whitworth Gallery Manchester, Museum of Wales Cardiff, as well as a number overseas.

She has received awards from the Arts Council, British Council, DAIWA Anglo-Japanese Foundation, Elephant Trust, GLAA, The Lorne Award and the Sunny Dupree Family Award, Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2009.

She has been a lecturer and examiner at many departments of Fine Art, and from 1991-2005 was Senior Lecturer in Painting at Chelsea College of Art, University of the Arts, London. She is an Artist-member of the charity A.P.T., Creekside, South London, where she has her studio, and is a Trustee of the charity Poetry London.

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My Studio Life

Artists' studios forever.

“In 1995, a group of us set up Art in Perpetuity Trust (APT) in order to provide studios for around 40 artists – in perpetuity. We’re now in Deptford but previously we were in Greenwich for 20 years – it was idyllic and ramshackle, like the place that time forgot. I still live in the area, and I walk to the studio every morning across the Ha-Penny Footbridge over Deptford Creek.”.

“My studio is on the second floor, and I have a small balcony overlooking the creek, which is tidal, always changing. I like keeping an eye on it. Ducks, swans, a heron and a kingfisher pass by.”.

Inside the studio.

“I usually have a lot of work in progress at any one time – they come in families, individual paintings that relate strongly to each other. I occasionally bring out earlier works, put them up and move them around and see how they inform each other. So there’s not really a linear progression – it’s more like a Möbius strip, a continuum.”.

Excavation and rediscovery.

“The way I am working at the moment means that each painting starts with a chequerboard of different colours. When this is dry, it’s overlaid with further layers of paint, some of which is wiped away. I have deliberately hidden what’s underneath, so at a later stage there is always a process of excavation and rediscovery.”.

“…and these sponges on sticks…called diddlers.”.

Paints.

“The local poundshop has useful stuff - buckets, scrapers, pots and so on, but I order paint from Golden, in the US, which is the best I’ve ever used.”.

Images and objects.

“I have a lot of images and objects in this corner of the studio, things I’ve been given or collected over time. The yellow and red bowl was a present from my god-daughter Betty, and the plant is a Christmas Cactus that used to be in my parents’ house in North Wales. After they died I brought it back here to London and it still flowers every year around this time. The pot it’s in was my great-grandmother’s.”.

Poetry.

“I don’t do a lot of reading in the studio, but I have many of my art books here, for reference, and poetry books, which accumulate. The compression in poetry has parallels with painting, in terms of how language, ideas and feeling relate to each other. I also have my back-copies of Turps Banana here – a journal written by painters about painters. I’ve had a couple of pieces published by them, on artists I admire. ”.

Chairs.

“I love these blankets, two by the contemporary weaver Eleanor Pritchard who works a block away. The antique Welsh blanket on the left I bought on eBay recently. It is identical to one that my grandmother had when I stayed with her as a child.”.

Selected Collections

Arts Council England
British Council
Contemporary Arts Society
Government Art Collection
National Museum Wales, Cardiff
Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
Chelsea & Westminster Hospital Arts Project
Guilford House Gallery, Guilford
London Borough of Hounslow
New Hall College, Cambridge
Royal Collection
Triangle Workshop Collection, New York
Universty of Chichester
University of Lethbridge, Canada
University of Reading
University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne

Piccadilly site

Burlington Gardens site

A voice for art and artists since 1768

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